Fictions of God
- Arts & Literature
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2020
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Publisher's Description
Fiction and theology share an attempt to articulate what it means to be human. They both include narrative accounts of virtue and vice, moral worth and moral failure. Through the themes of courtesy, brutality, silence, sound, and divine absence, the sacred nature and character of being human is explored in novels by Anita Brookner, Chuck Palahniuk, Anne Michaels, Richard Powers, and Iris Murdoch.
Endorsements (4)
“Here are conversations with God and the self in the dense, inescapable pages of fictions that reflect the courtesy demanded of the other, the brutality, the sound and the silence of God. Close readings of novels exchange with references from Dame Julian of Norwich, Plato, Wagner, Rublev, and many others. Here theology is ever present, embedded in the stuff of human existence, not explanatory but living and always real. God in fictions is never easy but so hard to escape or ignore. This is a book to be deeply pondered.”
“A thoughtful and compassionate voice calling us to hesitate and to listen to a richly textured exploration of the profound relationship between literary fiction and theology. England invites us into the interval between impulse and act, a place where we might glimpse the meaning of our humanity and its relation to the sacred. Fictions of God is an important book, deserving serious attention.”
“In illustrating how five writers create a dialogue between literature, theology, and philosophy, Fictions of God brings goodness and morality into the heart of everyday life. Frank England suggests that in such fictions of the other we not only find ourselves as we glimpse the nature of truth and love, but also come to understand that holiness and reverence are not the exclusive property of believers. This important book evokes a spiritual awareness crucial to the twenty-first century.”
“Frank England’s book offers a spiritually moving, and often striking, meditation on themes in contemporary literature put in conversation with Christian classics like Julian of Norwich and the Rublev ‘Trinity.’ The book poses the modern dilemma of what happens when Julian’s image of God’s courtesy is replaced by God’s silence, while asking about the therapeutic role of God’s presence in music and art.”
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